Shadowing Practice: The 70 Most Famous Quotes of All Time - Learn English Speaking with Video
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The 70 most famous quotes of all time.
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Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.
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Pay attention to your enemies, or they are the first to discover your mistakes.
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Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
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The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
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Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.
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Don't be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people's thinking.
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If life were predictable, it would cease to be life and be without flavor.
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Tell me and I forget.
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Teach me and I remember.
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Involve me and I learn.
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If you set your goals ridiculously high and it's a failure, you will fail above everyone else's success.
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Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
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When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot at it and hang on.
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Always remember that you are absolutely unique, just like everyone else.
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Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.
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The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
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In the end, it's not the years in your life that count.
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It's the life in your years.
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The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched.
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They must be felt with the heart.
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Whoever is happy will make others happy too.
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Do not go where the path may lead.
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Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
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You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated.
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Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.
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Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood be understood.
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You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes,
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you can steer yourself any direction you choose.
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If life were predictable, it would cease to be life and be without flavor.
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Go confidently in the direction of your dreams, live the life you've imagined.
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Life is never fair, and perhaps it's a good thing for most of us that it is not.
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You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.
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Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.
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practice until you get it right, practice until you can't get it wrong.
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A tiger doesn't lose sleep over the opinion of sheep.
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Kindness is a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
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If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life.
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There are no limits, there are only plateaus, and you must not stay there.
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You must go beyond them.
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If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.
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Some people think that if their opponent plays a beautiful game, it's okay to lose.
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I don't.
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You have to be merciless.
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One day your life will flash before your eyes.
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Make sure it's worth watching.
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The greatest mistake you can ever make in life is to be continually fearing that you will make one.
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Be like the flower that gives fragrance to the hand that crushes it.
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Courage isn't having the strength to go on.
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What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?
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It's never too late to be what you might have been.
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Talent is luck.
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The important thing in life is courage.
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Not until we are lost do we begin to find ourselves.
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Today I do what others won't, so that tomorrow I can accomplish what others don't.
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The most important things are the hardest to say, because words diminish them.
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Turn your face to the sun, and the shadows fall behind you.
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are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.
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You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.
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Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.
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If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap.
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If you want happiness for a day, go fishing.
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If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune.
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If you want happiness for a lifetime, help someone else.
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Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are,
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while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
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The only way that we can live is if we grow.
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The only way we can grow is if we change.
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The only way we can change is if we learn.
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The only way we can learn is if we are exposed.
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And the only way we are exposed is if we throw ourselves into the open.
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One man with courage makes a majority.
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Know the rules well so you can break them effectively.
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Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination.
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Yesterday is history.
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Tomorrow is a mystery.
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Today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.
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Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.
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Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit.
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We are all the same in this notion.
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The potential for greatness lives within each of us.
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People do not decide to become extraordinary.
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They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.
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A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
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He who fears he will suffer already suffers because he fears.
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Most people do not listen with the intent to understand.
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They listen with the intent to reply.
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If you don't like something, change it.
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If you can't change it, change the way you think about it.
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In seeking happiness for others, you will find it in yourself.
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Silence is the most powerful scream.
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The most powerful creative state to bring your desires into reality is by bringing the conscious and subconscious into unison,
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then keeping your heart and mind in perfect sync.
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Many people are trying to be invincible, and most of the time they fail invisible, while few find their spotlight.
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But the remarkable person is one who can be both invincible and invisible at the same time.
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I lost all I had known and gained a life I was yet to know.
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Some people get what they want because they grab the power and swing it and some people don't.
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When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.
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Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
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You don't need luck.
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You are powerful, clever and fearless.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “The 70 Most Famous Quotes of All Time”. This video has 101 sentences and 1151 words to shadow. The speech runs for 10:44. The speaker talks slowly, about 107 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| invincible adjective | /ɪnˈvɪn.sə.bəl/ | Impossible to defeat, destroy, or kill; too powerful to be defeated or overcome. |
| predictable adjective | /pɹəˈdɪktəbləl/ | Able to be predicted. |
| expose verb | /ɪkˈspoʊz/ | To reveal; to uncover; to make visible; to bring to light. |
| cease verb | /sis/ | To stop. |
| flavor noun | /ˈfleɪvə/ | The quality produced by the sensation of taste or, especially, of taste and smell in combined effect. |
| accomplish verb | /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ/ | To finish successfully. |
| invisible adjective | /ɪnˈvɪzəb(ə)l/ | Unable to be seen; out of sight; not visible. |
| confidently adverb | /ˈkɑnfɪdəntli/ | In a confident manner; with confidence; with strong assurance; positively. |
| diminish verb | /dɪˈmɪnɪʃ/ | To make smaller. |
| intelligently adverb | In an intelligent manner. | |
| merciless adjective | /ˈmɝsɪləs/ | Showing no mercy; cruel and pitiless. |
| subconscious adjective | /sʌbˈkɑn.ʃəs/ | Occuring in the part of our mind that we are not normally aware of. |
| unbearable adjective | So unpleasant or painful as to be unendurable. | |
| unison noun | /ˈjunɪsən/ | Identical pitch between two notes or sounds; the simultaneous playing of notes of identical pitch (or separated by one or more octaves). |
| ridiculously adverb | /ɹɪˈdɪk.jə.ləs.li/ | In a ridiculous manner. In a way that is funny, embarrassing or extremely implausible. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| fall behind verb | To be late (for a regular event) |
| give up verb | To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone). |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | If life were predictable, it would cease |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be trapped · cannot be seen · must be felt |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | dogma which is · people who did · those who believe |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 16 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, can't, doesn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: accomplish /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ/, diminish /dɪˈmɪnɪʃ/, subconscious /sʌbˈkɑn.ʃəs/, succession /səkˈsɛʃ.ən/, sunshine /ˈsʌnʃaɪn/
- Long words — get the stress right: invincible /ɪnˈvɪn.sə.bəl/, predictable /pɹəˈdɪktəbləl/, invisible /ɪnˈvɪzəb(ə)l/, confidently /ˈkɑnfɪdəntli/, ridiculously /ɹɪˈdɪk.jə.ləs.li/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like invincible, predictable, expose.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.